Ralph McQuarrie(1929-2012)

For the original Star Wars, the special effects team had to come up with a believable size for the Death Star that would allow it to appear round in long shots, but still appear flat in close-ups, since these had to be created by using flat sections of model, placed on flat tables. McQuarrie ended up calculating that the Death Star was 92 miles in diameter, which makes it approximately 290 miles in circumference.

[on the visualization of Star Wars] George had ideas about how his picture would look. in fact, I think the look of the picture was more interesting to him than the plot.